Renault Holds Back its Small Car Launch

Renault India has put on hold its plans to launch a small car in India. It is waiting for the economic conditions to improve in the country and on the global scale. "We have indefinitely put on hold our product plans...it is because of slowdown that has affected us globally," a senior Renault India official said. "The construction of the plant is going on, but we have frozen our product plans due to downturn in the global economy,” commented Renault India spokesperson. "However, we have left our product plan at such a stage that whenever we want to defreeze it, without loss of any time we can do (that) and ramp up the production." he added.

The company has currently stopped hiring for its production activities at its Chennai plant. It had announced last year to invest Rs. 4500 crores in the plant and to increase its market presence in the country. Renault is currently world’s fifth largest auto manufacturer and currently marks its presence in India with Mahindra. Mahindra Renault Logan is one of the successful models from the joint venture and is also currently being exported to South Africa as a Renault model.

Earlier there were speculations in the market that the company will be launching is Sandero hatchback model in India but now Renault has officially confirmed that it has put its small car project on indefinite hold in India.

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